Joy as Resistance: Re:INCARNATION, a West African Dance of Bodily Memory

“During the Black Lives Matter movement, everyone was talking about Black pain. I thought I could make a piece about Black joy.” Lagos-born choreographer Qudus Onikeku turned that intention into action. Drawing on West Africa’s Yorùbá culture, the urban vitality of Nigeria, and the language of contemporary dance theatre, he created Re:INCARNATION. The work features Afrodance in its raw, authentic form while offering a critical reflection on contemporary society. 

Nigeria’s political, social, and economic challenges—including high unemployment and police violence—have led many young people to consider leaving the country, and Qudus Onikeku was among them. In his early twenties, he moved to France to pursue his artistic career. There, he founded his first company, YK Projects, presented his work, and gained recognition within the European art scene. Yet at the age of thirty, he made the decisive choice to return to Nigeria, where he established QDance Center to nurture and support the next generation of Nigerian dancers. 

Re:INCARNATION is the result of six years of research into “bodily memory,” during which Onikeku collaborated with young dancers through workshops held across cities in Nigeria. He believes that, whether consciously or unconsciously, the contemporary body carries both past and present sociopolitical struggles: “I believe the body remembers—it remembers your emotions, your memories… the body can remember the pain of enslavement, and it can also remember the joy that existed before enslavement.” Although Re:INCARNATION began with the intention of creating a work centered on Black joy, it ultimately emerged as a fully realized and structurally rigorous piece. It can be seen as the culmination of Onikeku’s artistic journey. As a profound work presented in Taiwan, it deserves greater attention. 

The structure of Re:INCARNATION is rooted in the Yorùbá understanding of cyclical existence—Ibi (birth), Iku (death), and Atunbi (rebirth). As one of the largest ethnic groups in Nigeria, the Yorùbá conceive of life as a continuous cycle, in which ancestral spirits persist through future generations, and music and dance function means of connecting with the spiritual realm and the natural world. This worldview is deeply embedded in every detail of the work.

The first section, “Birth,” unfolds as a street party. The dancers move like an entire city in motion—colliding with one another amid noisy exchanges, waving arms, and light, quick steps—set against a hybrid soundscape of hip-hop, Afrobeats, and traditional Nigerian rhythms. 

The second section, “Death,” shifts into a quieter, more contemplative register. The music unfolds like a deep, continuous thread, weaving together intertwined duets and solos. The dancers’ movement persists, but the rhythm is no longer buoyant or celebratory. Now it pulses more like a heartbeat. 

In a linear view of life, death is final—an absolute end. But in a cyclical worldview, death marks another beginning. It is from this understanding that Re:INCARNATION moves into its third section, “Rebirth.”

“Rebirth” opens with a female dancer’s solo. As layers of sound accumulate, the dancers darken their bodies and put on masks, while the rhythms of West African dance bind them together. Though the soloist speaks not a word, his body tells a thousand

Through their high-intensity performance, the dancers of Re:INCARNATION lead the audience across ridge after ridge, allowing them to feel both the vitality of contemporary Nigeria and the traditions of the Yorùbá people. This is exactly the kind of work I love: at its most exuberant, it becomes a full-blown party that fills the entire space; in its moments of stillness, it calls forth the wounds carried within life itself. Though Re:INCARNATION comes from West Africa, it resonates deeply with Taiwan.

One passage from the work particularly caught my attention:

“To become Orisa (deity), you must first die—exit from modernity.”

For societies that have experienced colonial rule, “modernity” is not merely a symbol of progress. It also signifies power, discipline, imposed cultural norms, and the erasure of indigenous cultures. Only an artist who has deeply reflected on the experience of (being) colonized can so calmly and convincingly place modernity alongside a cyclical worldview of life. 

Africa is vast, and its expansive lands are home to richly diverse cultures. Re:INCARNATION, a work from West Africa, articulates contemporary Nigerian aesthetics through the convergence of youth culture and ancient Yorùbá philosophy. The piece also reveals the choreographer’s sustained reflection on social realities. Such reflection, however, is not unique to Africa. For Taiwan—an island that has likewise experienced colonial rule—Re:INCARNATION resonates with particular depth. Through this work, Africa is no longer framed as a distant “other,” but as a community of living, breathing people who use art to think through their own conditions, and in doing so, actively reshape the global artistic landscape.

Qudus Onikeku & The QDance Company: Re:INCARNATION ▶Learn More